Volume 5 / Act 1 — ON A PASSAGE IN "MEASURE FOR MEASURE," ACT I. SC. 1.

Dr. Johnson long since observed that "there is perhaps not one of Shakspeare's plays more darkened than this by the peculiarities of its author, and the unskilfulness of its editors, by distortions of phrase, or negligence of transcription."

Under these circumstances we cannot be surprised that we are favoured with three pages of notes on the following passage, which occurs in the opening scene:

I must refer those who are desirous of seeing the various attempts to extract a meaning from this passage to the Variorum Edition, and content myself with those of the two latest editors, Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight.

Mr. Collier says:

"This passage is evidently corrupt, as is shown both by the metre and the sense. The latter will be cleared by the omission of the preposition 'to:' 'then no more remains [to be said], but that your sufficiency, as your worth is able, and let them work.' This change, however, will only partially cure the defective measure; and even were we to omit 'that,' as well as 'to,' the line would not be perfect without reducing 'sufficiency' to a trisyllable. It has been thought best, therefore, to leave the text as it stands in the first folio. 'Sufficiency' is adequate authority."

Mr. Knight says:

"We encounter at the onset one of the obscure passages for which this play is remarkable. The text is usually printed thus:

"It is certainly difficult to extract a clear meaning from this; and so Theobald and Hanmer assume that a line has dropped out, which they kindly restore to us, each in his own way. The emendation which Steevens proposes is much less forced: 'Then' (says the Duke), 'no more remains to say,

"It is not our purpose to remove obscurities by additions or omissions, and therefore we leave the passage as in the original, excepting a slight alteration in the punctuation. We believe it may be read thus, without much difficulty. 'Then no more remains (to say on government) But that, (your science) to your sufficiency, (joined to your authority) as your worth (as well as your virtue) is able (equal to the duty), and let them work (call them into action).'"

I cannot say that this exposition (paraphrastic as it is) is clear to me; and I feel confident that our great poet never wrote the words "But that," following as they do "Exceeds in that." What does "But that" refer to? It cannot refer to "science," as Mr. Knight imagines. The remedy lies in a very trifling correction of the press. In the MS. from which the play was printed, the words "But thrto" were thus written, and the compositor mistook "thr" for "tht;" there is no comma after that in the old copies. Replace "thereto" and the passage is perfectly clear as to sense.

It may be necessary to show that the word I propose would be used by the poet just in the sense required here. The following passage from the Winter's Tale, Act I. Sc. 2., will, I think, place it beyond doubt:

I take the sense of the whole passage thus: "Since I must acknowledge that you are better skilled in the nature of government than I am, it would be idle in me to lecture you on the subject. Then nothing more is wanting but thereto your sufficient authority (i.e. to govern), as you have the ability, and let them (your skill and authority) come into operation."

Sufficiency, as Warburton long ago observed, is authority, but may possibly be here used in the Latin sense of substitution. Escalus is to be Vice-gerent. The very slight change necessary, and the great probability of the occurrence of the error, strongly recommend this simple emendation.

Daily experience is manifesting how large a portion of the difficult passages are errors of the printer of the first folio, the two happy corrections lately given in The Athenæum, for instance: who can doubt that in Coriolanus, Act III. Sc. 1., "Bosome-multiplied" should be "Bissom-multitude:" or that, in All's Well that Ends Well, Act V. Sc. 3., "infuite comming" should be "infinite cunning?" A glance at the passages as they stand in the old print of the first folio would convince the most sceptical. A list of mere printer's errors in that book would be not a little astounding.

S. W. SINGER.

[It may be proper to observe, that this Note by MR. SINGER had been in the Editor's possession at least a fortnight previous to the appearance of that by our esteemed correspondent at Leeds in our last Number.]

FOLK LORE.

Sites of Buildings mysteriously changed.

—It may be amusing to the readers of "N. & Q.," and attended with some useful result, to record a few popular traditions respecting the mysterious opposition to the building of certain edifices on the spots originally designed for them by their founders. I will introduce the subject with the local traditions about the building of three churches well known to myself.

1. The church of Breedon, in Leicestershire, stands alone on a high hill, the village being at its foot. The hill is so steep on the side towards the village, that a carriage can only ascend by taking a very circuitous course; and even the footpath winds considerably, and in some parts ascends by steps formed in the turf. The inconvenience of such a situation for the church is obvious, and the stranger, of course, wonders at the folly of those who selected a site for a church which would necessarily preclude the aged and infirm from attending public worship. But the initiated parishioner soon steps forward to enlighten him on the subject, and assures him the pious founder consulted the convenience of the village, and assigned a central spot for the site of the church. There the foundation was dug, and there the builders began to rear the fabric; but all they built in the course of the day was carried away by doves in the night, and skilfully built in the same manner on the hill where the church now stands. Both founder and workmen, awed by this extraordinary interference, agreed to finish the edifice thus begun by doves.

2. The parish church of Wendover, in Buckinghamshire, stands nearly half a mile from the town. The church was to have been placed on a field adjoining the town, and there the building of it was begun; but the materials were all carried away in the night by witches, or, as some relate the tradition, by fairies, and deposited where the church now stands. The field in which the church was to have been built is still called "Witches' Meadow."

3. The parish church of Winwick, Lancashire, stands near that miracle-working spot where St. Oswald, king of the Northumbrians, was killed. The founder had destined a different site for it, but his intention was overruled by a singular personage, whose will he never dreamed of consulting. It must here be noticed that Winwick had then not even received its name; the church, as not uncommon in those days, being one of the earliest erections in the parish. The foundation of the church, then, was laid where the founder had directed, and the close of the first day's labour showed the workmen had not been idle, by the progress made in the building. But the approach of night brought to pass an event which utterly destroyed the repose of the few inhabitants around the spot. A pig was seen running hastily to the site of the new church; and as he ran he was heard to cry or scream aloud "We-ee-wick, We-ee-wick, We-ee-wick!" Then, taking up a stone in his mouth, he carried it to the spot sanctified by the death of St. Oswald, and thus employing himself through the whole night, succeeded in removing all the stones which had been laid by the builders. The founder, feeling himself justly reproved for not having chosen that sacred spot for the site of his church, unhesitatingly yielded to the wise counsel of the pig. Thus the pig not only decided the site of the church, but gave a name to the parish.

In support of this tradition, there is the figure of a pig sculptured on the tower of the church, just above the western entrance; and also the following Latin doggerel:

May not the phrase "Please the pigs" have originated in the above tradition, since the founder of Winwick Church was obliged to succumb to the pleasure of his porkish majesty?

Instances of equally marvellous changes in the sites of buildings are recorded in Bede, and other monkish writers. Perhaps it would not be difficult to unravel the mystery of such changes.

W. H. K.

Burning the Bush.

—While in Herefordshire last spring, I noticed a singular custom in the agricultural districts. When the wheat is just springing out of the ground, the farmer's servants rise before daybreak, and cut a branch of thorn of a particular kind. They then make a large fire in the field, in which they burn a portion of it; the remaining part is afterwards hung up in the house. They do this to prevent the smut, or mildew, affecting the wheat.

J. B. ROBINSON.

Belper.

Essex Superstition.

—An uncle of mine, who has a large farm near Ilford, tells me, that observing a horse-shoe nailed to the door of one of his cow-houses, he asked the cow-keeper why he had fixed it there. The lad gravely replied, "Why, to keep the wild-horse away, to be sure." This is, to me, a new reason for the practice.

I have learned that the superstition about the bees deserting their hives on the death of one of their owner's family, is common in the same county. A lady tells me, that calling upon some poor people who lived at Hyde Green, near Ingatestone, she inquired after the bees. The old woman of the house replied, "They have all gone away since the death of poor Dick; for we forgot to knock at the hives, and tell them he was gone dead."

C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY.

OLD SONG, "NOT LONG AGO I DRANK A FULL POT."

I send another old song; and, as in the case of the "Cuckold's Cap," I would ask is it known?

J. R. R.

Minor Notes.

Boston and Bunker's Hill.

—In the plan of Boston, among the maps of the Useful Knowledge Society, is to be found, near Charleston, and on Breed's Hill (the real site of the battle usually misnamed as of Bunker's Hill), the following notice, "Defeat of the British, 1775." My first idea was, that, Liberal though the Society might be, it was being rather too liberal to give away in this manner a victory which, however bloody and fruitless, was indubitably ours: but, on second thoughts, it seemed that the whole fault arose from copying too implicitly an American map. Now I am well aware that a very large part of the Americans, from continually vaunting (and with good reason) the valour they displayed, and the honour they acquired, on that occasion, have gradually worked themselves into the belief that they were the victors, even though their own historians tell a different tale; and they have even placed inscriptions on the monuments standing on the site of the intrenchments from which they were forced by the British; which inscriptions also assert a similar claim. This would be of no great consequence had it been confined to themselves; but its being transferred to an English publication not only tends to mislead many persons on this side, but enables the Americans to refer with confidence to it, as an admission of their victory on the part of the British; and no one who remembers the use they made, on the Oregon Question, of a similarly occasioned error in one of the Society's globes, can doubt that our Transatlantic friends would make the most of this trifling affair in confirmation of their claims to the victory.

J. S. WARDEN.

Snooks.

—This name, so generally associated with vulgarity, is only a corruption, or rather a contraction, of the more dignified name of Sevenoaks. This town is generally called Se'noaks in Kent; and the further contraction, coupled with the phonetic spelling of former days, easily passed into S'nooks. This is no imaginary conclusion, for I am told by a trustworthy friend that Messrs. Sharp and Harrison, solicitors, Southampton, have recently had in their possession a series of deeds in which all the modes of spelling occur from Sevenokes down to S'nokes, in connexion with a family now known as Snooks.

G. W. J.

Last Slave sold in England.

—Can any of your correspondents tell me the date of the last public slave sale in England? Till the establishment of Granville Sharpe's great principle, in 1772, announcements of these are by no means uncommon. The following, from the Public Ledger of Dec. 31, 1761, grates harshly upon the feelings of the present generation:—

SAXONICUS.

Hoax on Sir Walter Scott.

—The following passage occurs in one of Sir W. Scott's letters to Southey, written in September, 1810:

"A witty rogue, the other day, who sent me a letter subscribed 'Detector,' proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of; yet there was so strong a general resemblance as fairly to authorise 'Detector's' suspicion."

Lockhart remarks thereupon:

"The lines of Vida which 'Detector' had enclosed to Scott, as the obvious original of the address to 'Woman' in Marmion, closing with—

"end as follows: and it must be owned that if Vida had really written them, a more extraordinary example of casual coincidence could never have been pointed out.

"'Detector's' reference is Vida ad Eranen, El. ii. v. 21.; but it is almost needless to add there are no such lines, and no piece bearing such a title in Vida's works. 'Detector' was, no doubt, some young college wag; for his letter has a Cambridge post-mark."

It may interest to know that the author of this clever hoax was Henry I. T. Drury, then, I think, of King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards one of the Masters at Harrow. The lines will be found in the Arundines Cami.

W. T. M.

Hong Kong.